This application is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/949,908, entitled “SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR IMPLEMENTING THREE DIMENSIONAL (3D) OBJECT, PART AND COMPONENT MANUFACTURE INCLUDING DISPLACEMENT/VIBRATION WELDED OR HEAT STAKED LAMINATES,” filed in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on a same day as this application, and co-owned with this application, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
1. Field of the Disclosed Embodiments
This disclosure relates to systems and methods for implementing localized and directed laser welding joining techniques in a process of building up laminate layers to form and/or manufacture three-dimensional objects, parts and components (3D objects).
2. Related Art
In recent years, traditional object, part and component manufacturing processes, which generally included varying forms of molding or machining of output products, have expanded to include a new class of techniques globally referred to as “additive material” or AM manufacturing techniques. These techniques, as currently implemented, generally involve processes in which layers of additive material, sometimes toxic or otherwise hazardous in an unfinished state, are sequentially deposited on the in-process 3D object according to a particular material deposition and curing scheme. As each layer is added in the 3D object forming process, the new layer of deposited material is added and adhered to the one or more already existing layers. Each AM layer may then be individually cured, at least partially, prior to deposition of any next AM layer in the 3D object build process.
AM manufacturing techniques include, but are not limited to, those techniques that have come to be referred to broadly as “3D printing” techniques usable for producing 3D printed parts. 3D printing techniques employ one or more processes that are adapted from, and appear in many respects to be similar to, well-known processes for forming two-dimensional (2D) printed images on image receiving media substrates. The significant differences in the output structures produced by the 3D printing techniques are generally based on (1) a composition of the deposited materials that are used to form the output 3D printed parts from the 3D printer; and (2) a number of passes made by the “print” heads in depositing comparatively large numbers of successive (and very thin) layers of the deposition material to build up the layers to the form of the output 3D printed parts.
In sophisticated AM manufacturing systems, including complex 3D printers, an ability of the deposition system or printing apparatus to translate among multiple axes such as, for example, at the end of a robotic arm, provides a capacity for the AM manufacturing system or 3D printer to produce increasingly intricate 3D objects of virtually any shape according to computer control in the copying of a 3D model, and/or in translating 3D modeling or object forming information to a detailed digital data source file.
An expanding number of AM manufacturing or 3D printing processes and techniques are now available. Principal distinguishing characteristic between the multiplicity of these AM manufacturing or 3D printing processes are in the manner in which the layers are deposited to create the output 3D objects, and in the materials that are used to form the output 3D objects.
Certain of the AM manufacturing techniques (as this term will be used throughout the balance of this disclosure to refer to various 3D object layering and build techniques including 3D printing) melt or soften materials to produce the build layers using techniques such as, for example, selective laser melting or sintering of an input material. Others of the AM manufacturing techniques deposit and cure liquid materials using technologies for the deposition of those liquid materials such jetted (ink) material “printing” techniques.
Difficulties arise with the typical material deposition techniques as they are adapted for AM manufacturing. An amount of solid material to be deposited in either of a material extrusion, material jetting or other like deposition process must be limited in order that the deposition material can pass through the particularly-configured material deposition nozzles without clogging those nozzles during the AM deposition process. As a result, very thin layers of material are deposited on each pass of the deposition system across, or around, the already deposited layers forming the in-process 3D object. This limitation of depositing very thin material layers, often combined with a need to cure each deposited layer before depositing any next layer, limits a build speed for the 3D object in the conventional AM manufacturing processes, tending to make the processes very tedious and only economical or efficient enough for employment in producing limited runs of particularized 3D objects.
AM manufacturing techniques thus exhibit advantages over conventional part manufacturing techniques, including molding or machining, in that the intricacy in a finished part. AM manufacturing techniques additionally promote certain flexibility in a color gamut in the available materials when the AM manufactured 3D objects are intended to advantageously present particular color schemes, thereby avoiding some after-object-formation additional finishing steps. In 3D printing techniques, for example, the ink-like materials are capable of using multiple materials, which may be of differing colors, in the course of printing, or otherwise forming, the output 3D printed parts. The capacity of these techniques to print in multiple colors and color combinations simultaneously to produce output 3D printed parts generally eliminates additional object painting/finishing. AM manufacturing systems and devices, in general, can undertake material deposition with a broad spectrum of different materials as well. These materials include, for example, extruded plastics and thermoplastics, high-density polyethylenes, certain metals (including sintered metals, metal powders and/or metal alloys), glued powder mixtures, ceramic materials and ceramic matrix composites, modeling clays, plasters and certain ink-like materials, including photo curable and/or ultraviolet (UV) light curable inks with high concentrations of solid components suspended in solution. 3D printers can even be used to deposit layers of compositions of edible materials for producing foodstuffs in the culinary arts.
Unfortunately, the advantages in these AM manufacturing systems and schemes are currently balanced by the distinct disadvantages of time to build and cure among others, making these AM manufacturing techniques less acceptable in certain, and particularly mass production, 3D object forming scenarios.